Florida beach lights reportedly cause turtle deaths

Thursday

OKALOOSA ISLAND — Hotel and condo lights reportedly caused many baby sea turtle hatchlings to become disoriented and crawl north to their deaths instead of making it to the Gulf of Mexico last week.

Johnny Springfield, a volunteer who helps monitor the nests each year on Okaloosa Island, shared a Facebook post Tuesday stating that possibly nearly a hundred baby sea turtles — which by nature follow the moon's glow on the water to find their way to the water — confused bright hotel and condo lights near Beasley Park and Nautilus Condominium for the moon.

"They don’t hear the water. They don’t smell the water. They go toward the moonlight," Springfield said of a turtle nest near the park. "I got a call at 6 a.m. saying they had turtles everywhere on the beach. I got up and went out there, but we didn't find many. Birds and ghost crabs get them if they go into the sand dunes. We know that 69 hatched, and I have rumors that maybe 20 were saved.

"When they follow those lights, it's a death sentence," he added. "It’s an absolute death sentence."

Springfield said three nights later there was a second nest that hatched about 2 a.m. near Nautilus Condominium. Those baby turtles also got confused by the bright condo lights, he said.

Experts planned to examine the nest Wednesday night to estimate how many may have died in the dunes. Twenty to 30 of those were saved by beach workers, Springfield said.

One beach worker last week found one of the baby sea turtles trying to cross U.S. Highway 98 in front of The Island Hotel. Another was found trapped inside a plastic milk jug near Beasley Park.

"It’s sad to see this happen," Springfield said. "Sometimes we will dig down in the nest and find trash. If there is a beer can or plastic bag, she’ll (the mom) will just rake it in there. Sea turtles don't have a reverse.

"Only one out of 1,000 sea turtles makes it to maturity," he added. "We had six nests on Okaloosa Island with 100 turtles in each nest. In a situation like this, if two are destroyed by lights, that cuts us down to four nests. We might not get any to survive out of the whole generation."

Mother turtles can also get disoriented, Springfield said. There were 12 to 15 false crawls reported on Okaloosa Island this year, which is when a turtle does not lay her eggs on the beach and returns to the water because of distractions.

"From Okaloosa Island to Destin, you have thousands of people walking on the beach with flashlights," Springfield said. "It disturbs the turtles and they go right back into the water.

"If you look out there at night and stand on the balcony, it looks like an interstate highway. It needs to be fixed."

Springfield said one solution is replacing bright white lights on hotels and condos with red or orange bulbs. Sea turtles, he explained, cannot see red or orange light.

This story originally published to nwfdailynews.com, and was shared to other Florida newspapers in the GateHouse Media network via the Florida Wire. The Florida Wire, which runs across digital, print and video platforms, curates and distributes Florida-focused stories. For more Florida stories, visit here, and to support local media throughout the state of Florida, consider subscribing to your local paper.